I, Frankenstein Still Features A Muscular And Non-Monstrous Aaron Eckhart

In my day to day life, there are many things I feel I have to take with a grain of salt, from political news to box office expectations to whatever insane miracle health cures people incessantly post on Facebook. The world is rich with things to peer at behind a skeptical lens.

This brings us to the above picture, the first official still from Stuart Beattie’s upcoming horror thriller I, Frankenstein, which makes me certain that no one involved with the making of the movie has ever stitched a bunch of different body parts together in the goal of reanimating them as one living being. The photo comes to us courtesy of Entertainment Weekly via Bloody Disgusting, and it features Aaron Eckhart just standing there looking fucking ripped. Seriously, was his body dug up from the graves of men who died due to an overdose of upper body exercises?

I guess those are faded scars across his chest and his arms (and maybe a little eyeliner around his peepers), but I’m beginning to think the medical consultant used in the movie was actually the guy from Milton Bradley’s Operation. I know that Eckhart’s character – whose name is Adam, since referring to someone as “the Monster” removes all traces of personality – won’t be solely defined by his looks, and that the battles he’ll face will inevitably be in the spotlight more than his non-cobbled physique, but it’s disconcerting nonetheless. It’s like making a Dracula movie where he uses a special tool to extract the blood from people’s necks. You guys remember Robert De Niro’s monster from Kenneth Branagh’s Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, right?

Scarred up and nasty, just like a Frankenstein creature should be. But I suspect anyone with a Hollywood crush on Eckhart doesn’t have much of a problem with this appearance.

Beattie wrote the script based on the graphic novel of the same name written by Kevin Grevioux, co-creator of the Underworld franchise. It follows Adam into modern times, which he’s able to live through due to quirky genetics. On the way to some kind of a dark metropolis, he is caught between two immortal clans that have been battling for centuries. My guess is that at some point somebody will punch Adam in the stomach, and he’ll be able to brush it off, since his abs are made of steel.

Co-starring Bill Nighy, Socratis Otto, Miranda Otto, Aiden Young and Yvonne Strahovski, a post-converted 3D I. Frankenstein will finally shamble its way into theaters on January 24, 2014. But you’ll be able to catch some preview footage at the film’s Comic-Con panel.